The Grind, Presented by Bank of Clarendon: Laurence Manning's Schuessler making an impact on the boys lacrosse team

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If you make your way to a Laurence Manning lacrosse game, you might notice the long brunette hair that trails the helmet of their goalkeeper.

In a sea of boys, Cassandra Schuessler stands in net, ready to face the oncoming offense.

"It wasn't bad as you think," Cassandra said. "They're a lot more open than I thought they would be. There are no sexist or misogynist comments in these teams. There was no real hard transition for the boys to even accept me. Sure, a little talk but nothing bad, just curiosity."

Cassandra is the lone girl on Laurence Manning's boys lacrosse team, but she doesn't see herself as an outsider. That being said, there are a few differences for the Swampcat goalkeeper.

"I can't really relate to some of the injuries that my male counterparts have every now and then," Cassandra joked.

As for game prep, "They go to the locker room; I go to my car."

THE EARLY DAYS

While Cassandra may seem like an outlier, she's been with the program since its inception four years ago. She's seen the ups and the downs of starting a new program, especially in a niche sport like lacrosse.

Like most of her teammates back in 2019, Cassandra had never played lacrosse when LMA decided to add the program. She mostly played because she wanted something to do after deciding to end her cheerleading career.

Cassandra didn't grow up playing sports, but when her brother, Shaw, invited her to pick up a new sport with his friends, she jumped on board.

"He was more into it than me," Cassandra said. "It's funny how the majority of the people who first joined were juniors at the time. It was just a big group of friends that was like, 'I'll join if you join it.' One of those people was my brother, so I got dragged into it."

Having Shawn around was a boon for Cassandra. She had someone to learn the sport with and, as she transitioned to goalkeeping, she had someone to constantly fire shots in her direction.

"It felt like having a backboard because I had someone I could be comfortable with and mess around with when everyone else, I didn't know, except for like two other eighth-graders at the time. It just helped me stay stable with the team," Cassandra said. "It definitely helped me improve, especially when I started goalie.

Laurence Manning barely had enough players for just a boys team. Luckily, she wasn't the only girl on that initial team.

"I had girls that I knew I could at least relate to," she said. "It didn't feel like I stuck out so much like a sore thumb. It was a nice backboard, just like my brother, just a different flavor."

That first season came with its own set of challenges. Most of the team had never held a lacrosse stick before.

"Both of my coaches were afraid for their safety. They thought they would need to wear a helmet by how bad we were passing the ball. It definitely started out really rough," said Cassandra with a laugh. "There was no expectation for you to be good immediately because no one else had that experience except for three people, so it was nice to grow with our team. I think it really helped all the team bond for each other, just because we're all growing at once."

Cassandra needed to find a position when she joined the team. Most players started at midfield and moved either forward or backward on the field.

"Cheerleading did not prepare me for the amount of running I had to do, so my knees got extremely worn out very quickly," Cassandra said. "Goalies, for the most part, just stand there. I was like, 'OK, I can do this.' It was by coincidence that I got put there, and I enjoyed it ever since, so I just stayed there."

The Swampcat goalkeeper saw the field for the first time at the end of a preseason scrimmage. While her technique was far from perfect, she knew she was in the right spot.

"It was a pretty instantaneous click because I was put in at the last little bit of the scrimmage, and I think I stopped maybe five balls but none of them were with the net of my stick. They were all with either my arms or just the rod of my stick," Cassandra recalled. "It just felt really nice to be able to stop the ball and know I'm helping my team doing that. It just felt natural to be in there."

LOSING 2020

Cassandra was looking forward to her second year in the spring of 2020. COVID-19 had other ideas.

2020 was a taxing year, especially for a fledgling program. Nearly half of the players on the Swampcats' first roster were juniors, so losing 2020 meant losing most of their team.

"When we just stopped. It was really disappointing because that was the last season I got to play with my brother. That was last season I got to play with the majority of the original characters," Cassandra said. "I remember ending it. I remember getting ready to get into my brother's car saying goodbye to one of my friends. He was like, 'See you tomorrow…unless.' And then we didn't see each other, and he left for Florida, and that was the last time I saw him."

Cassandra and many others feared it would be the end of the program, at least for a year or two until they could rebuild their player base.

"We had a very small group already, so when more than half our group are seniors and have left, I was like, 'Is it gonna take a break for a year,'" Cassandra said. "I was really happy to find out we had a lot of freshman who wanted to join even though I knew from the start that it was going to be the first generation all over again."

TRAVEL BALL

While the Laurence Manning program experienced turnover, Cassandra got her first taste of the sport away from the Swampcats.

After her first season at LMA, she played for a travel team over the summer, Hitman Lacrosse out of Columbia. She was again playing with a boys team, but this was a team with more experienced players.

"I enjoyed the experience because I got to meet people with different play styles who just knew the how to play the game better, and so they moved differently," Cassandra said. "It got me used to better players, so I was able to learn the sport a lot quicker."

After a season with Hitman Lacrosse, the team disbanded. Luckily, the program had a sister team that Cassandra occasionally practiced with. Needing a new team, she moved to the next field and played on her first girls team.

It wasn't that simple. Girls lacrosse has a slew of different rules.

"Thankfully, I did have one camp. It was just a two-day camp where I got a little bit of how the girls rolled," Cassandra said. "But just joining a girls team to play with, there were a lot of questions of 'Why am I doing this? Can I do this? OK, I can't do that. Why are the girls not continuously pushing forward like guys will?' It was hard at first, especially just (learning) what was and wasn't allowed."

The biggest difference for Cassandra was how the defense was allowed to play around her. With the boys, defenders are able to close in around the net and make it tougher for opponents to find a clean shot. That's not the case for girls.

"With guys, I get to feel safe because they're just huddled around me, and they can push the attackmen out," Cassandra said. "Girls cannot stay within an 8-meter zone for three seconds. I wasn't allowed that comfort because girls can't go directly in front of a shot if you're defender, so I'm left just bare to the elements for the most part. It's really nerve-wracking, but it gives me a good open view."

REBOOTING THE PROGRAM

After a summer with the girls, Cassandra was back at Laurence Manning in 2021.

Only a handful of players remained from that initial squad.

Suddenly, Cassandra was an experienced veteran with a new group of players learning the sport.

"It's kind of amusing watching them not know what to do," Cassandra said. "I didn't have expectations that we were going to do well. I didn't set my bar high. It was new guys to get along with, new social groups to integrate myself in. It was more about learning the guys and helping them progress in their skills.

"It almost made me feel like I'm watching the next generation just grow, and soon enough they'll be seniors and I'll be gone, then they'll have to watch that all over again. Hopefully we'll be able to keep growing our team and not have what we had last year."

Of course, that also meant another group of boys to learn that their goalie was going to be a girl.

"I don't think I gave them time to question it," Cassandra said. "For my defense, I think I'm more of a mother hen because I usually try to help them move to where they need to be. I talk playfully with the offense a lot of the time. If they miss a shot, if I catch a shot they throw a right to me, I get to banter a bit with them. Through talking with them, I was able to quickly help them realize I'm not going anywhere, and this is what is happening."

FINALLY GETTING A WIN

After a season of rebirth, Laurence Manning came into the spring of 2022 with something it never had. A team that wasn't starting from ground zero.

There were some new faces this spring, but most of them had a chance to play the sport in middle school before making the jump to varsity.

The Swampcats earned their first win in program history this spring, beating Aiken 7-5 on March 10. Cassandra waited three years to be in goal for it.

"It didn't really set in at first because I had an injury that kind of took my mind off it, but as soon as it set in, I was ecstatic," Cassandra said. "I was so proud of my team who's come so far. Especially since for the majority people, this is their second year playing, so they improved vastly beyond my expectations for them."

Cassandra hopes that win is the first step in the program's overall development. Laurence Manning is still very young with a slew of eighth-graders and freshmen on the field. There are even more eighth-graders waiting in the wings on the middle school team.

Next year, Cassandra will be a senior. She's excited to see how the program continues to blossom compared to where it was four short years ago.

"I am happy that I get to see them grow and expand because we're only losing one senior next year," Cassandra said. "The probability that I'm gonna be the only person from the original team makes me very proud that I could stay within the team for this long and see the team's first game and hopefully the team's first (season) with a good amount of wins."

FUTURE WITH LACROSSE

Cassandra doesn't know if lacrosse will be in her future after Laurence Manning. Her brother went on to play at Methodist University, and she's certainly thought about following in his footsteps.

Her concern is finding time to play as she pursues a career in marine biology, and I know I want to focus on that. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to commit to lacrosse and see it as other than a distraction."

Whatever her future holds in lacrosse, Cassandra is glad to have spent the last four years with the boys on the Swampcats.

"I don't regret coming out here and playing," Cassandra said. "I've got some great friends. I love these kids. I love my teammates. I am distraught at the thought that I never would have met them if I didn't just join the team because they made my life a lot more interesting."